1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to interactive games and methods for teaching. More particularly, but not exclusively, the invention relates to teaching others through the use of digital interactive media.
2. Related Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,826,878, and 6,032,957 to Kiyosaki et al., and incorporated herein by their reference, disclose respective methods and games for teaching personal finance, investing and accounting (collectively and individually referred to herein as “financial principles”) to others. These games and methods have proven to be successful from both educational and commercial perspectives. These patents disclose board games and associated methods in which players learn and reinforce financial principles through game play using inanimate objects such as various game cards, boards, tokens and game pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,300, also to Kiyosaki et al. and incorporated herein by its reference, discloses a mechanism for teaching financial skills to players, and in particular, to children, in the context of a game. This patent discloses not only the use of a board game but also an electronic implementation of the game that can be actuated or visualized on a display.
Video games and other types of “interactive” electronic media have become a primary form of entertainment in the modern world. As used throughout this disclosure, “interactive” means an environment in which audio, video, activities and/or other actions are automatically performed in response to a student, game player, or other type of participant's input. The use of interactive media could be important in various educational products or methods. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to utilize interactive media to teach and/or educate others.
Additionally, there are significant costs associated with conventional games, methods and systems used for education. For example, the financial and environmental costs of producing, distributing and using educational and gaming materials such as, paper (e.g., training materials or playing cards), cardboard (e.g., book covers or game boards and associated packaging), plastic (e.g., game pieces, spinners, dice) can be significant. Moreover, there can be significant costs associated with the design, manufacture, warehousing and shipping such materials. It would be beneficial to have educational products and methods that do not require as great an investment in, or consumption of, these resources.
Moreover, conventional systems for educating others have been traditionally associated with person-to-person contact and/or required one's presence in a particular physical location, e.g., instruction in a classroom or playing a board game in a location where another person is present. It would be advantageous to provide methods and systems for providing education in a digital medium so that students or participants could learn and be educated at any location with only minimal investment or infrastructure.